I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

Unfortunately radiation from Fukushima, industrial pollutions and other similar events will change all that... I wouldn't be surprised if humans would die out in the next thousand years unless some extraordinary technological breakthrough...

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

Hi manas,First, Nature will always win in the end. This planet (and universe) could care less about how many of us there are because no matter how much you multiply Nature could WIPE US ALL OUT IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT.

I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

"'superior intelligence' and 'rationality'"

The emergence of intelligence, I am convinced, tends to unbalance the ecology. In other words, intelligence is the great polluter. It is not until a creature begins to manage its environment that nature is thrown into disorder. Until that occurs, there is a system of checks and balances operating in a logical and understandable manner. Intelligence destroys and modifies the checks and balances even as it tries very diligently to leave them as they were. There is no such thing as an intelligence living harmony with the biosphere. It may think and boast it is doing so, but its mentality gives it an advantage and the compulsion is always there to employ this advantage to its selfish benefit. Thus, while intelligence may be an outstanding survival factor, the factor is short-term, and intelligence turns out to be the great destroyer. -- written by a crazy character in SHAKESPEARE'S PLANET, a sci-fi novel by Clifford Simak, 1976.

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond.SN I, 38.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

Dear Manas,I remember 'Thera put' told me once that people who have many children...because of their karmas..if they have many good children who take care of old parents, then good karmas....if they have bad children, that's bad karmas...(parents/children did together in the past lives).

I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

Yes, the human species is exploding, but mostly in the socalled "third world", with no or few means of birth control, lack of education and poverty.

In highly civilised countries like Germany, we have the population pyramid upside down, with too little adults paying to the old, retired...

Wouldn't worry about what's in the future though. We'll be dead and if reborn, who knows what will be.

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaVSMVMMWBBTBHTWTBTMy Page

manas wrote:http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/I note that there is also a steady trickle of 'deaths' along with the 'births', but overall, we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature, rather than our own much-vaunted 'superior intelligence' and 'rationality', when it comes to not expanding in sheer numbers beyond what the available resources can sustainably provide. If we are really 'smarter than the animals' we will stop 'breeding like rabbits'!

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

It just occurred to me, I think we might be able to expand the population further, with advances in technology and thus future food production, but at the cost of the rest of the Earth's environment, and other species; we could end up surviving, but on a relatively barren Earth, as compared with what we still have today.

I can think of two approaches that are proven to work. One is that, as poor people get educated, especially the womenfolk, they usually have less children. But (sadly) I don't think there is the political will to undertake that option, in which case there is also the 'Chinese govt solution' - pass laws worldwide, with the agreement of all the major governments, to provide incentives for people to have only one or two children, but no more. I don't like this solution, but if it is between that and ruining the Earth's ecosystems, I would choose govt interference. But a declining population could 'harm economic growth', the sacred cow of the current status quo. No wonder we are in such dire trouble!

If we are going to talk about how fast resources are spend on this world I have an excellent talk by dr. Albert Bartlett about the exponential function, it's effect on resources and why there is no such thing as sustainable growth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2cI realize it is lengthy but it is also quite profound in it's message and I found it very interesting. I recommend watching it completely.

Suffering is asking from life what it can never give you.

mindfulness, bliss and beyond (page 8) wrote:Do not linger on the past. Do not keep carrying around coffins full of dead moments

If you see any unskillful speech (or other action) from me let me know, so I can learn from it.

manas wrote:Hi Alex, and everyone,It just occurred to me, I think we might be able to expand the population further, with advances in technology and thus future food production, but at the cost of the rest of the Earth's environment, and other species; we could end up surviving, but on a relatively barren Earth, as compared with what we still have today.

Hi, manas,If you have just begun to think about this, I suggest you read The Population Bomb and the 1960-70s SF that took it as a starting point - especially Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green). What you suggest now was a very real fear back then but isn't now, largely because of ...

manas wrote:I can think of two approaches that are proven to work. One is that, as poor people get educated, especially the womenfolk, they usually have less children.

As you say, it is proven to work. Bill Gates has been known to say that the single best solution to third-world poverty is to educate girls, for just this reason.

manas wrote:But (sadly) I don't think there is the political will to undertake that option

Once it gets under way, it doesn't *need* any political will. Look at birthrates in the West! People - especially women - are just acting as best they know how to improve the quality of life of themselves and their children. The Chinese solution was a desperation measure. I don't blame the leadership for it - managing a huge population that is always only one bad harvest from starvation is a huge ask - but I doubt that it will be needed again.

manas wrote:...we seem to be a species who might still need to be restrained by Nature,...

Nature always has, currently does, and always will restrain us.

The universe doesn't give a f**k how much we reproduce. When it's ready to explode again, we're ALL stardust.

As James Hutton, the great geologist, concluded in his Theory of the Earth:

We have now got to the end of our reasoning; we have no data further to conclude immediately from that which actually is: But we have got enough; we have the satisfaction to find, that in nature there is wisdom, system, and consistency. For having, in the natural history of this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may from this conclude that there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they are intended to continue those revolutions. But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of nature, it is in vain to look for any thing higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,--no prospect of an end.

To which the palaeontologist and singer/lyricist for Bad Religion added in their song "No Control":

When we all disintegrate it will happen again.

Since we have no control over indifferent nature, the escape from samsara and not "population growth" should be our primary concern. Humans will never breed at a fast enough rate to outpace the will of nature and the reality of samsara.

There's plenty of room out there. You just got to know where to look.Best,Daniel

manas wrote:ruining the Earth's ecosystems.... No wonder we are in such dire trouble!

Even if we are ruining ecosystems (I'm not convinced), the earth doesn't care. She knows we or something else kill ourselves off before that. And if we don't, she also knows she'll probably recover from whatever we do; and even if she doesn't, she knows the universe will take care of her.

We are in very dire trouble, but not because of population growth.Best,Daniel

Ytrog wrote:If we are going to talk about how fast resources are spend on this world I have an excellent talk by dr. Albert Bartlett about the exponential function, it's effect on resources and why there is no such thing as sustainable growth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2cI realize it is lengthy but it is also quite profound in it's message and I found it very interesting. I recommend watching it completely.

From the video (12:55-14:55):

On July 7 1986 the new reports indicated that the world population had reached 5 billion people growing at a rate of 1.7% a year. Your reaction might be, "That's so small. Nothing could ever happen at that rate." So you calculate the doubling time...to find it's only 41 years. More recently, in 1999, we read that the world population had increased from 5 billion to 6 billion people. The good new is news is that the growth rate had dropped from 1.7% per year to 1.3% per year.

1986 World popluation 5 BIllionGrowth-1.7% per yearDoubling time-41 years

1999 World popluation 6 BIllionGrowth-1.3% per yearDoubling time-53 years

The bad news is that in spite of the drop in growth rate the world population today is increasing by approximately 80 million people every year! If this modest 1.3% per year could continue, the world population would reach a density of 1 person per square meter on the dry-land surface of the earth in just 780 years. And the mass of people would equal the mass of the earth in just 24,000 years! Now we can smile at those [figures]. We know they couldn't happen.... Zero population growth is going to happen. Now we can debate whether we like zero population growth or we don't like it, but it's going to happen--whether we debate it or not, whether like it or not--it's absolutely certain people could not live at that density on the dry-land surface of the earth. Therefore, today's high birth rates will drop, today's low death rates will rise, until they have exactly the same numerical value that will certainly be in a time short compared to 780 years.